20 April 2016

Google has been warning the owners of Gmail mailboxes since 2012 about hacking attempts by secret services.

This specific warning was received by a Russian journalist Roman Shleinov, regional editor of the anti-corruption project Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, writes Meduza.io. The report stated that at least 0,1% Gmail users faced such attacks.Two weeks ago Roman, a member of the Centre for the study of corruption (OCCRP) and member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) turned to VTB for a comment about the wife of the head of VTB Andrey Kostin. The journalist wanted to know whether she is a beneficiary of an offshore company in the Bahamas, as indicated in the "Panamanian archives."Google did not say how they detect who employs the hacker who "tries to steal the password." Perhaps it is about formal requests by security services (whether satisfied or not).

The punchline comes now, though:

In January 2016 the presidential advisor on the internet, German Klimenko, complained that Google ignores the Russian special services requests. "As a rule, Google is responding to 32 thousand requests per year from FBI or NSA and one request from our law enforcement agencies. We must honestly admit that they do not respond to our requests, they simply ignore them," - he said. According to him, the Russian "criminals" are increasingly using foreign services, while "Russian IT companies cooperate with the authorities". "It is even to their slight competitive advantage"- he added.